I have essentially the same question as in my post below. Does the "Ride of Silence" to honor bicyclists injured or killed while riding on public roadways actually marginalize the bicycle as a legitimate form of transportation? If we act like an oppressed minority, do we not just confirm our status as an oppressed minority? Do such events (and Ghost Bikes, too) actually do anything to reach out to the non-bicycling public, or are they events that the bicycling community does for itself? If the latter, does it only further isolate, embitter, and/or enrage bicyclists, perhaps encouraging them to take their next negative encounter with a driver to the next level?
Further, these events bring accident victims posthumously into a bicycle "community" that they may not have been a part of when alive. Does making them martyrs to a cause they may not even have believed in (one doesn't need to be dogmatic to get killed while riding a bicycle, after all) really do proper justice to their memory? Wouldn't that time and energy be better spent volunteering for the local bicycle advocacy organization or bike kitchen?
My question at the end of it all is just this: Why are we doing this? We say we want bicycling to be inclusive, but don't such "nation building" events by their very form and function create insiders and outsiders? Us and Them? Us versus Them?
You can perhaps discern my own leanings on the issue, but the questions posed are genuine. What do you think? Reasonable disagreement is encouraged. Poopy-pants-ness, not so much.
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Apparently this is the Post of Silence. Don't everyone answer at once...
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with it Thom. The ghost bike for Atip: he ran a red light. He wasn't wearing a helmet. But, apparently that light doesn't trigger for cyclist. Still. But, at some point we need to speak up, and become known. It starts with things like this, and critical mass. Then, we get bigger.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go for the ride, but I think one could say the same for all events that have a very specific purpose...example: breast cancer walkathon.
ReplyDeleteI read several accounts of the ride of silence and the reports said the ride was very moving and quite the tear jerker.
My real belief with all these events, is that eventually bicycling will be the fastest way to get around. So I'm just going to be patient.
@ Beany: You have a point RE: cancer walkathon, thanks for that perspective. I suppose any organization of a "community" of people is bound create insiders and outsiders, it's just matter of making the line between them easier and easier to cross. Perhaps that's what a Ride of Silence and/or Ghost Bike does by saying "hey, look, we're people, too, don't kill us with your car."
ReplyDeleteTo address the larger issue: I have a hard time believing that CM, Ride of Silence, Ghost Bikes, etc. can really speak for the whole, diverse world of bicyclists. The question I really wanted to raise with this post involves who the "we" is in Will's comment above. What is the "bicycling community" and can anyone really speak for the group? As the movement grows, events like this become less and less likely to truly speak for the whole group, and I become less pleased at being lumped-in with organizations and activities that claim to speak for the bicycling community as a whole, but which I (as a bicyclist) don't necessarily agree with.
It isn't about speaking for every cyclist, it is about speaking for ourselves. I did the ROS here in SF. It wasn't big, it wasn't flashy. For me, it was a way of saying to others " I am here with my child on my bike. See me. Value my life enough to change how you drive". People need to see that there are consequences to their actions and that the people who die on their bikes while riding in the road are connected to others- they have families and friends who are left without someone important.
ReplyDeleteIf we worry about creating "us and them", we will never do anything. There will always be "us and them", but that does not have to be contentious or obstructive. It does have to be recognized and honored, though.
Adrienne, thanks for your thoughtful comments. The point about "us and them" is well taken, as is the idea of creating visibility for bicyclists. I particularly like your observation that difference of mode of travel need not produce hostility or antagonism. I think that's a lesson more drivers *and* riders need to learn.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was just beginning to consider cycling, learning about the Ride of Silence and Ghost Bikes scared the heck out of me and put me off wanting to cycle in the city. "This could be me if I start commuting by bike" was what went through my head.
ReplyDeleteSo, Filigree, how did you get past that?
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems with equating a Ride of Silence to a cancer walkathon (see comments above) is that people can choose whether to ride a bike or not, while they can't choose to get cancer. In other words, people who are put off, or scared off, from bicycling because they see a RofS or CM or Ghost Bike can make the choice to avoid it or even become hostile to it. I've never met anyone who was hostile or scared of a cancer walkathon.
I wonder if you would be put off driving if we started to put up Ghost Cars or had memorial drives? The roadside memorials that get put up at accident sites do not seem to stem the flow of traffic.
ReplyDeleteAdrienne, you're right of course, but I think in that case, most people don't believe they *do* have a choice about whether or not to drive. Using a car is so much the norm in our culture that people don't think twice about it. Because the car is accepted as *the* mode of transportation, a lot of dedicated drivers see bicyclists as contrarians, flouting the norm by choice. People who may be considering bicycling instead of driving for practical reasons may see things like Ghost Bikes, CM, RofS, etc., and feel like they're riding with a target on their back. For them, it highlights the dangers of bicycling, not the sense of community that comes from such events, or from bicycling generally. That, after all, is the perception we have to try to change.
ReplyDeleteThis is why roadside memorials don't stem the flow of traffic, because auto traffic has come to be seen as almost elemental--that is, an unavoidable part of life, so auto accidents come to seem more like acts of nature. This is why nobody bats an eye at the statistics of people killed in cars, but believes that bicyclists are "asking for it" when they try to ride on the roads.
Here is my theory on that- cars give the illusion of individuality while bicycles demand that we recognize our individuality.
ReplyDeleteCars are designed to make us forget how to protect ourselves or how to work for our transportation. We become utterly detached from ourselves, and thus, unaware of our true physical and personal abilities as well as cut off from others with no safe way of communicating with them.
Bicycles demand that we engage with ourselves and our environment in order to make them work. We have to communicate honestly with ourselves and others to be safe. We have to confront our limitations, including our mortality. If you are not prepared for that, bicycles will be frightening.
My. I sound deep : P
Indeed! And I think you're really onto something there. Car companies actually *encourage* us to surrender control to their cars, what with GPS and OnStar, even cruise control. We are actually told to "lose" ourselves in the experience of driving, or to wrap ourselves in the luxurious interior, shutting out "external" distractions. The fantasy of the car that drives itself is perhaps the extreme of this ideal.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing in this that I see, is that we as people are not challenging ourselves in any way anymore. Everything comes right to us without any work involved. We live up to our own lowered expectations of our ability to think/do/defend ourselves. This means that the smallest things become a challenge, including taking responsibility for our own locomotion. We have become a society based completely in fear of our own power, and thus, have become powerless (seemingly).
ReplyDelete